Hello, everyone! Only signed up a few days ago, and now I'm jumping feet-first into a discussion of something that's made waves in the last few days: It appears YouTube is "cracking down" on controversial channels and the like with its monetization policies.

A significant amount of YouTubers have expressed their displeasure over the supposed changes; AlphaOmegaSin uploaded what at least one member in the comment section considered to be one of his largest rants of the year about it, I Hate Everything made a video about it, Secular Talk made a video about it... Needless to say, news and opinions on the supposed changes have been making the rounds.

I would like to submit Google's "advertiser-friendly guidelines" into evidence: Link

To be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely sure what this means for the exchange of ideas on the YouTube platform. The clarification letter claims nothing has actually changed with the policies or with how they're enforced, and yet, there are several channels – large channels, at that – apparently suffering from sudden demonetizations on a significant scale. There are concerns, even, that this is a censorship effort – hence my posting this discussion right here; forgive me if this is the wrong place – to the end that YouTube is to become a "safe space", to use some dissenter's words.

Is there anyone here who could possibly explain what is going on? I'm not sure I have the whole story.

The very thing that gives us humans our advanced cognitive abilities can also be our greatest weakness.

I don't know any more about it than I've read in your links. It's pretty disappointing that they're doing that, to be frank, although this has been YouTube's endgame for some years. They've only to rename it TheTube for the transition to be complete.

I don't agree that it is censorship, as it is their platform to do with whatever they choose, and your rights to free speech aren't being infringed by a tightening of rules on a publicly available yet privately owned (cyber)space, let alone that it really only applies (as far as I can tell) on monetised content.

From a purely practical view, it makes sense for YouTube to appear family friendly to maintain their online video hegemony.

Prolescum wrote:I don't know any more about it than I've read in your links. It's pretty disappointing that they're doing that, to be frank, although this has been YouTube's endgame for some years. They've only to rename it TheTube for the transition to be complete.

I don't agree that it is censorship, as it is their platform to do with whatever they choose, and your rights to free speech aren't being infringed by a tightening of rules on a publicly available yet privately owned (cyber)space, let alone that it really only applies (as far as I can tell) on monetised content.

From a purely practical view, it makes sense for YouTube to appear family friendly to maintain their online video hegemony.

Perhaps, but controversial videos do attract a lot of views, which I would expect advertisers to want; that's more traffic for them, and more money for YouTube themselves. For that matter, gaming videos, especially those from your Markipliers, Jacksepticeyes, and PewDiePies, also attract a lot of views; these people swear like sailors in their videos, and apparently "advertiser-friendly" stuff shouldn't have that.

australopithecus wrote:Anything that forces Jake from Bible Reloaded to get a real job is fine by me!

Srsly tho, its a bad idea that will applied inconsistently. I have a feeling YT may quietly drop this bag of dicks in the near future.

But yeah, I hope this shit goes away once YT realizes how bad an idea it is.

The very thing that gives us humans our advanced cognitive abilities can also be our greatest weakness.

But yeah, is it surprising? If we were looking at this from the business viewpoint of YT, I don't think we'd have all that great concerns for freedom of speech and other ideas. In order to make YT an entertainment platform suitable for all, some things certainly have to change. And I don't think YT will miss many of the more trolly, controversial figures.

In that light, what they say in the video above makes sense: They want to actually implement and enforce these rules on most people, but they'll try to make exceptions for their biggest hitters, in order to not lose too many views.

It is, of course, sad for many of us who've always used YT as, well, a second home online, really, where any subject could be discussed.

YT has to some extent been the Wild West, but it's now growing up. The question now is how far this will go, and then if it goes too far, some replacement for YT could rise.

But yeah, is it surprising? If we were looking at this from the business viewpoint of YT, I don't think we'd have all that great concerns for freedom of speech and other ideas. In order to make YT an entertainment platform suitable for all, some things certainly have to change. And I don't think YT will miss many of the more trolly, controversial figures.

In that light, what they say in the video above makes sense: They want to actually implement and enforce these rules on most people, but they'll try to make exceptions for their biggest hitters, in order to not lose too many views.

It is, of course, sad for many of us who've always used YT as, well, a second home online, really, where any subject could be discussed.

YT has to some extent been the Wild West, but it's now growing up. The question now is how far this will go, and then if it goes too far, some replacement for YT could rise.

australopithecus wrote:Anything that forces Jake from Bible Reloaded to get a real job is fine by me!

Srsly tho, its a bad idea that will applied inconsistently. I have a feeling YT may quietly drop this bag of dicks in the near future.

You called it, sir.

The very thing that gives us humans our advanced cognitive abilities can also be our greatest weakness.

This could really hurt Youtube. All that needs to happen is for someone to make a video platform which works as good as Youtube which does not take away monetasation due to controversial content. If someone like PewDiePie were to move, it would be a huge loss if he left. I think Youtube needs to try and find a balance between pleasing their advertisers and their customers. Maybe advertisers should start to realise that they might not like the video, but they need viewers to survive. If viewers are going somewhere else for their content, advertisers will lose as well.

"Beer, the cause of - and solution to - all of lifes problems" Homer Simpson

Do advertisers really care about the content if their ads keep receiving views? Some probably do but I bet that a good marketing campaign could use "bad" content too. Its seems like YT is doing something that they think the advertisers would want them to do. I think it'd be better to let the advertisers decide if they want their ads on "questionable" content.

Either way, it's far to easy for people to flag/dmca content on YT. If the process of deciding if a video should be demonetised wasn't skewed against the creator there wouldn't be a problem.

WarK wrote:Do advertisers really care about the content if their ads keep receiving views? Some probably do but I bet that a good marketing campaign could use "bad" content too. Its seems like YT is doing something that they think the advertisers would want them to do. I think it'd be better to let the advertisers decide if they want their ads on "questionable" content.

Either way, it's far to easy for people to flag/dmca content on YT. If the process of deciding if a video should be demonetised wasn't skewed against the creator there wouldn't be a problem.

I think advertisers do care. When A youtuber makes very inappropriate jokes, advertisers will see the video and they will be upset that their product is associated with that product. It sounds silly but advertisers don't want their adds to be viewed before a video of a random person yelling "fuck" a lot.

"Beer, the cause of - and solution to - all of lifes problems" Homer Simpson

WarK wrote:Do advertisers really care about the content if their ads keep receiving views? Some probably do but I bet that a good marketing campaign could use "bad" content too. Its seems like YT is doing something that they think the advertisers would want them to do. I think it'd be better to let the advertisers decide if they want their ads on "questionable" content.

Either way, it's far to easy for people to flag/dmca content on YT. If the process of deciding if a video should be demonetised wasn't skewed against the creator there wouldn't be a problem.

I think advertisers do care. When A youtuber makes very inappropriate jokes, advertisers will see the video and they will be upset that their product is associated with that product. It sounds silly but advertisers don't want their adds to be viewed before a video of a random person yelling "fuck" a lot.

I think someone should tell that to AlphaOmegaSin.

That said, I tend to agree with WarK. I think it would be better if it were the advertisers making the decision there.

The very thing that gives us humans our advanced cognitive abilities can also be our greatest weakness.

Honestly, who makes money off the ads from YouTube? I thought most of the money made by the YouTubers comes from Patreon?

Beyond that, how is this censorship? No one is saying they cannot post videos anymore, they just will not have ads on certain videos. I have posted over 2800 times and am a blogger on this forum for free. Just because one does not make money off their speech does not mean they do not have it.

he_who_is_nobody wrote:Honestly, who makes money off the ads from YouTube? I thought most of the money made by the YouTubers comes from Patreon?

Beyond that, how is this censorship? No one is saying they cannot post videos anymore, they just will not have ads on certain videos. I have posted over 2800 times and am a blogger on this forum for free. Just because one does not make money off their speech does not mean they do not have it.

There is an argument that it is a form of censorship; people who do this for a living get their income either reduced or halted, meaning they require alternate sources of income (such as getting a "real job", perhaps) which could mean significantly less time to do the research they need.

I'm not saying I agree; in fact, I more or less dropped the censorship part of this discussion. That in mind, I actually think it no longer fits here on "Fighting Censorship". I'm a bit more concerned about how the new policies will be enforced at this point.

The very thing that gives us humans our advanced cognitive abilities can also be our greatest weakness.

Akamia wrote:There is an argument that it is a form of censorship; people who do this for a living get their income either reduced or halted, meaning they require alternate sources of income (such as getting a "real job", perhaps) which could mean significantly less time to do the research they need.

How is that an argument? One's speech does not guaranty a pay check. They can still say pretty much whatever they want, they just will not make as much money from it. Good for them for finding away to make money for just talking in the first place, but them claiming this as a free speech issue is malarky. They are just upset that their pocket books are being affected, because their speech is not.

Akamia wrote:I'm not saying I agree; in fact, I more or less dropped the censorship part of this discussion. That in mind, I actually think it no longer fits here on "Fighting Censorship". I'm a bit more concerned about how the new policies will be enforced at this point.

I still disagree that it is censorship simply because just because you have speech does not mean people have to or should listen to you. However, there is something very wrong with this. Perhaps a new term needs to be created for it.

The interesting part of the vid starts at 14:20 it's an idea of how to improve how the ads work. Let the youtuber decide which ads to put in front of their vids. That way they can have ads that people would actually be interested in and wouldn't have to meat a ridiculous list of conditions for the vid to be eligible for ads.

The interesting part of the vid starts at 14:20 it's an idea of how to improve how the ads work. Let the youtuber decide which ads to put in front of their vids. That way they can have ads that people would actually be interested in and wouldn't have to meat a ridiculous list of conditions for the vid to be eligible for ads.

I know of a few YouTubers who actually record their own ads and plug them into the video somewhere. ScrewAttack does it, as does JonTron. I think the Game Theorists (questionable as MatPat's "theorizing" methods are) are doing it too.

The very thing that gives us humans our advanced cognitive abilities can also be our greatest weakness.